ATLANTA 05: "Identity Theft" Warning from InterVarsity

News Release
For Immediate Release

“Identity Theft” is the theme of Atlanta 05, InterVarsity’s National Black Collegiate Conference, coming to Atlanta, Georgia, December 27-31, 2005. This year’s conference will be held at the Renaissance Atlanta Hotel Downtown. The purpose of Atlanta 05 is to implement the objectives of InterVarsity’s Black Campus Ministries which are to: develop a generation of Black Christian leadership, and promote authentic reconciliation in the Body of Christ.

The theme “Identity Theft: Expose, Reclaim, Prevail,” will expose the lies and unredeemed names the world hurls upon people of African descent, and also that people of African descent hurl upon themselves. Delegates will be urged to reclaim their redeemed identity in Jesus Christ by looking at the names God calls them, and to prevail by appropriating the redeemed identity of those names through the power of the Holy Spirit.

“Our community is diverse,” says Atlanta 05 conference director Boris Collins, “and we acknowledge that diversity. We’re not just Afro-American, but Afro-Caribbean, bi-racial, multi-racial, as well as first generation immigrants from Africa.” Collins hopes that delegates will not just reclaim their personal identity but also re-identify with their community of fellow believers. “We exist as part of a community and part of a body,” he says.

Speakers at Atlanta 05 include: Rev. Paula Fuller, InterVarsity Interim Vice-President for Multiethnicity; Pastor Esther Ibanga, Senior Pastor of Jos Christian Missions International in Jos, Nigeria; Rev. Dr. Sheldon Nix, Director of the Institute for Christian Counseling at Eastern University and Associate Pastor at the Union Baptist Church in Wilmington, DE; Dr. Cheryl J. Sanders, Senior Pastor of the Third Street Church of God in Washington, D.C. and Professor of Christian Ethics at the Howard University School of Divinity; Rev. Byron Williams, syndicated columnist and Pastor of the Resurrection Community Church in Oakland CA; Ed Ollie, InterVarsity Associate Regional Director from St. Louis; and Harvey Cozart, InterVarsity Campus Staff Member from Kentucky.

InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA is a national ministry working on 564 U.S. college campuses. InterVarsity believes that men and women on U.S. university and college campuses, transformed by the Gospel of Jesus Christ, can transform the world. InterVarsity is committed to reaching the whole university with a faithful witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

For more information contact Boris Collins: (508) 429-6322 or email: pastorbec@aol.com